I would expect e-books to be considerably cheaper than printed books, since there are reduced distribution and production costs. Yet the retail price often doesn’t match those savings versus an e-book. I would hope that the authors royalties would reflect some of the savings in production costs.
In: Economics
It’s the same reason for all digital vs. physical content (movies, music, video games, etc): because they want people to have a reason to keep buying physical. When prices are the same, customers choose based on their personal preference. If one is consistently cheaper than the other, then far more people will gravitate to the cheaper option, hurting the sales of the more expensive option.
It keeps their retailer partners happy, it keeps their “purist” customers who prefer physical books happy because they’re not forced to pay a “paper surcharge”, and it helps keep production costs of physical books lower.
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